Moonshot at the G7 2025 Kananaskis
Interior and Security Ministers' Meeting
The Honourable Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety, hosted the G7 Interior and Security Ministers’ Meeting in Ottawa, Ontario, from November 21 to 23, 2025. The meeting brought together Heads of Delegation from G7 countries, as well as global partners and allies, to discuss the complex challenges to the safety and security of their nations, the common commitment to preventing and countering threats to their citizens, and the resilience of their sovereign states. Vidhya Ramalingam, Founder and CEO of Moonshot was invited as Guest of Honour at the G7 Interior Ministers’ Meeting Working Dinner, which focused on global efforts to address terrorist and violent extremist content online.
“Moonshot is a global organization that is doing extraordinary work in Canada.”
Minister of Public Safety, Canada
Moonshot Founder and CEO Vidhya Ramalingam’s Address to the G7 Interior and Security Ministers
Source: Public Safety Canada
We are losing young people to violence at a rate we have never seen before. I’m here to tell you that we can stop this.
Not just through effective content moderation. We can reach people before they decide to pick up a weapon. There are critical moments online where we can intervene.
We know that perpetrators of violence leave clues. In 93% of mass shootings in the United States, the attacker displayed clear warning behaviors — many of them online. These are windows of opportunity where we can act, long before a law enforcement response is required.
I have sat face-to-face with neo-Nazis and helped them walk away from violence. And I am here to tell you: we can do this online.
This isn’t about surveillance or censorship. It’s about ensuring that when a 13-year-old feeling isolated desperately searches for violent content at 2 AM, or is approached by a stranger on Roblox, they find a trained counselor instead of a predator.
Dan Rogers, Director of Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Vidhya Ramalingam, Founder and CEO of Moonshot at the G7 Interior and Security Ministers’ Meeting | November 21, 2025 – November 23, 2025 | Ottawa, Ontario
Source: Public Safety Canada
Our Approach
My organization Moonshot does just this. We work globally to end terrorism and violence online.
Our approach is simple and evidence-based:
1
Find the moments of vulnerability online
We identify thousands of online behaviors that indicate risk of violence — searches, language used, violent videos. We work collaboratively with government agencies on this.
2
Intervene at exactly the right moment
3
Connect them to real help
They click through to a confidential website, staffed by trained counselors who they can reach by text, phone, or chat. Not to censor them. Not to surveil them. But to help them.
Canada’s Results
Two Years In
Two years ago, Canada took a critical step forward and launched a nationwide online violence prevention model with Moonshot. In that time, we have made:
3,920,826
Offers of support to Canadians consuming extremist or terrorist content online, and concerned parents, educators or loved ones. We know that 40% of those in Canada consuming terrorist and extremist content online are likely under 18.
12,000+
Individuals have been connected to online services.
8,000+
Of them were consuming deeply violent content online.
80+
Individuals most in need engaged with counselors for help.
A Case That Matters | One Case Stays with Me
A young man was consuming incel videos encouraging violence against women. He had been spending hours a day online, was deeply isolated, and started having fantasies about violent attacks against women.
He saw one of our ads. He clicked through. He reached out for help.
Today, he is in regular counseling, receiving psychiatric care, rebuilding his life — and crucially, no longer fantasizing about violence.
This is someone who could easily have ended up on the front pages of our newspapers.
This is what successful online prevention looks like.
What the Data Shows
Our models in New Zealand and the United States have shown similar patterns: When we meet people in that moment where they are considering violence, they want help.
People searching for terrorist content are 115% more likely than the general public to engage with offers of support. In Canada, those consuming nihilist violent extremist content are twice as likely to seek help as any other extremist category.
Violence isn’t the only outcome for these people. Some are asking to be stopped.
The intervention is exactly the same, whether the person is consuming ISIS content or nihilist violence.
Why This Matters Now
Why does this matter right now? The online environment is changing faster than our institutions can keep up.
With generative AI, we will soon face threats we cannot yet fully imagine: Synthetic terrorist propaganda tailored to a child’s insecurities. AI-generated violent content indistinguishable from reality.
Tech companies can be partners. They already embed prevention messaging for suicide and child sexual exploitation.
However, we cannot rely on platforms alone. The problem is moving too quickly. Outsourcing public safety entirely to the tech companies carries too much risk. Governments can take control of their own threat environment, as Canada has pioneered.
Across the G7, the public now spends about 40% of their waking hours online. Our interventions must shift there too. But it won’t require 40% of your counterterrorism budget to do it — only a fraction. Less than 0.5% of your CT spend can build this capability. And given that a single attack can cost hundreds of millions, the return is clear.
There are already strong exchanges across the Five Eyes on delivering online prevention. Expanding that cooperation to the G7 and the EU would strengthen our collective ability to act early and save lives.
The Ask
Adopt online prevention as essential national security infrastructure
Alongside our policing, intelligence, and border security infrastructure — we are missing a critical window of opportunity to stop attacks if we are not also delivering active intervention online.
And when I speak to senior law enforcement officials, they’re clear: this is what they need. Early intervention eases the burden on their agencies and allows them to focus on the most urgent threats.
Source: Public Safety Canada
I’m asking you to take one immediate step: Go back to your departments and ask a simple question — what are we doing to reach people earlier, before law enforcement must respond? And if the answer is “not enough,” then ask what it would take to build that capability?
And have your teams speak directly with counterparts who are already doing this — including Canada — to understand the evidence and the return on investment.
You can ensure that every child and adult, within your borders, engaging with terrorist and violent extremist content online is always offered lifesaving services.
If we get this right, we will be prepared for what the future will bring, as AI makes the online threat environment even more dynamic and more dangerous.
If we get this right, we can offer young people a different path — one grounded in hope rather than despair.
If we get this right, we will prevent violence before it happens. And we will save lives that would otherwise be lost.
I’d like to ask you this
What would it take for us — across the G7 — to deliver early intervention online with the same coordination we expect from platforms?
And what is the one barrier in your system that, if addressed, would make this possible?
Thank you.
Download Moonshot’s full address to the G7
About Moonshot
Moonshot pioneered the field of online violence prevention in 2015, becoming the first organization to systematically redirect individuals away from terrorist content at scale. We remain the only provider of this proven methodology worldwide. Our interventions have prevented real-world violence: connecting individuals considering violence to crisis counselors, supporting bystanders to intervene, and escalating urgent cases that disrupted planned attacks. Today, this model has expanded to prevent organized crime, child sexual exploitation, gender-based violence, and all forms of terrorism. We have delivered this work in partnership with all Five Eyes governments.
About the G7
The Group of Seven (G7) is an informal grouping of seven of the world’s advanced economies (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and the European Union. Its members meet annually at the G7 Summit to discuss global economic and geopolitical issues.
The country assuming the G7 presidency is responsible for setting the agenda for the year, as well as hosting and organizing the summit, along with several meetings between ministers and senior officials throughout the year. As part of its role as G7 President, Canada is hosting a series of ministerial meetings throughout the year.
In 2025, Canada and its G7 partners will celebrate 50 years of partnership and cooperation. Ever since France hosted the first meeting in 1975, the G7 has been a driving force for international peace, economic prosperity and sustainable development.